buddy and I going to the bank.

A Slow Slogging Journey Getting Right

Last week Angela and I started walking in the evenings again right after work. It helps to transition into home life by putting a barrier between work and life. My leg has healed enough that I don't really notice any negative effects while walking. Occasionally after a particularly long walk I will notice a touch of tightness but some soft stretching seems to relax it. Since the injury I've played a few shows and gone out dancing a couple of times, in each of these cases I occasionally move in a way that reminds me that I'm still hurt. It's shown enough improvement though that I felt comfortable with the idea of going on a run last night. Angela and I walked to the grocery store and back first, so my leg was feeling warm and ready. I then set out to run, as slow as humanly possible. It turns out it was easier to run slow than I thought it would be, I'm actually quite timid on my feet. I could feel that my leg wasn't yet normal, but I made sure I ran slow enough that it didn't hurt. I'm going to try and do a slow slow mile each day this week and keep stretching it out.

This weekend was fun. I got a lot of work done on a couple of Turbo Sunshine songs that have been giving me a hard time. The work I got done made me intensely happy. Stubborn songs can be the most rewarding. Tonight Angela and I will attempt to work up the basic live versions of 3 new songs.

Late last night I was up helping Devin hit a deadline to release his latest single from "It's Never The Way You Imagine It". I did a remix a year ago for the song "Strange Season" which is included and I also mastered the b-side. The Excellent a side was produced, mixed and mastered buy my own personal Yoda, K. Hill.

The entire single is 2 bucks on band camp... How bout you go buy it.

Zombie boy and troll st. Troll.

How much is $1 worth?

the places we must go

To pick up the ones we love

RIP DDD

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Copy Rogers

Here is a piece of writing I was working on around 6 years ago. It's incomplete. I remember that inside the box was a xerox machine, and that as the story progressed my plan was to have a new xerox machine show up everyday. Rather than do something smart with the free machines that keep arriving (like sell them) I had planned that Nella would start trying to arrange them into some sort of make shift shelter.


the thick skin of the tv dinner gravy finally burst
allowing the liquid underneath to add yet another
stain to ella rodger's pink sweatshirt. this was not
the first time nella had fallen asleep with a tv
dinner resting on her lap, that happened often, what
did not occur often was what prompted her to be
startled awake. The doorbell rang again.
"aw, shit...goddamn mother fuckers!" nella had a way
with words that turned the package delivery driver on
the otherside of the door a shade or two paler then he
already was.
tim willis was a competent delivery driver, in 20
years as a driver the 5'9" red head had seen many
disagreeable types, but nella willis was
their queen. he was ready to dump the large
4' by 3' box and be done with her when the door
opened. the fresh gravy running down her sweat suit
made tim's stomach churn.
fast as he could tim thrust his pen into nella's
chubby hand and extended the clipboard between them.
nella looked puzzled, tim didn't notice because she
always appeared to him as befuddled.
"what the fuck is this? i ain't paying you jack dick
for some big fucking box that i didn't order."
(you couldn't afford the tape much less the box fatty),
mental replies allowed tim to keep his trademark cool
on occasions such as this.
"maam, the package has already been paid for."
"well what the fuck is it asshole?"
(it would appear to be every shred of dignity you ever
had, finally come home to join you). tim had to smile
in her face at that thought.
"can't say as i know maam, i just deliver the
packages."
"well some good you are, and cut that fucking maam
shit."
"you bet" tim enjoyed playing the role of hyper happy
asshole, it had helped get him through many a piss
poor shifts in this otherwise worthless job.
after what appeared to tim to be some inner debate
nella signed her name to the ticket.
tim was a friendly man, while federal universal
packaging allowed driver descretion in the finally
resting place of all parcells tim usually chose to
assist most customers in placement of a large package.
tim did not feel especially nice today, he withdrew
his dolly and trotted back to his truck. as he sped
off he had a hearty laugh at the look of sheer
confusion worn by nella rodgers.
at that moment nella was involved in one of the
deepest thoughts she'd had in years. what the fuck
was this big son-of-a-bitch?
the only thing nella could think of was the spring
mounted riding pony that her father had promised her
for christmas oh so many years ago. she'd been on the
look out for all of november and december 84 for a box
of that size, and christmas morning when it hadn't
come she'd finally had enough of dear old dad.
"well sweet jesus bitch, your a day late and buck
short asshole"
nella scaned the surrounding barren landscape, fully
expecting to see the pudgy form of her father as he'd
looked eleven years ago when she told him once and for
all to go fuck him-sef. nella's brain did not have
the capacity to imagine the natural changes that a
persons appearance can under go in a decade or more.
"shit bag!" with her favorite epitaph nella truned to
head back to her couch.
five steps in a vague greed began to wash over the
frumpy gravy stained form.
she turned back and headed toward her double wide
door.
bending at her substantial waste was not a movement
nella rodgers was accoustomed to. her back ached and
her free swinging breasts struck one another. she
struggled for a good minute before it struck her that
the box was goddamn heavy. with the adaptability of
bacteria nella soon moved to the side of the box
opposite her open light green trailer door. nella
pushed with the momentum of thousands of tv dinners
finished before they could spill onto the four
sweat-suit's that comprised nella's wardrobe. the box
slid slowly through the door.
a good fifteen minutes of cursing and panting saw the
box to the area between her color tv and foul smelling
couch. nella for the moment allowed the physical
exertion to over power her curious greed as she
slumped upon the battle tested couch. within a minute
nella was sound asleep.

nella's grey eyes slowly focused between the outline of her nipple protruding through her sweat suit and a large box of unkown origin resting on her trailer floor. nella is not blessed nor cursed with a memory, she has very little recollection of tim willis dumping the package on her front porch. "that big fucked asser head." her spring mounted pony was one thing nella never forgot, and her father who never supplied it was one of many people she never forgave. nella's own version of what other people call curiosity crawled it's way through neglected pathways of her brain. she wondered if she'd be able to ride the horse when she pulled it from the box. she could tell by the size of the box that it was one of those stupid fucking things you have to piece together.
the ice in nella's glass of porter ridge merlot was melting at an astonishing rate

Nowhere to Run

I'm starting to feel very slothy and little crazy. There are undoubtedly countless weeks that have gone by where I didn't run at all. Certainly months at a time when I was up to my very worst behavior. The difference is now I can't, and lately I've gotten very used to it. I can walk normal now. It's not even painful climbing the stairs to the apartment. I've done a couple of test steps though to make at running and immediately the leg lets me know it's not yet in the bag of tricks I can perform. It hurts some at night now, and it hurts if I press hard on the back of muscle.

Pushups help when I feel lazy but they can't replace the extended euphoria of a run.

Heal pt. 2

Saturday I had big plans and god had a sick sense of humor. Angie and I met Devin, Dylan and long lost cousin Lisa for Brunch in Santa Monica at Urth Cafe. It's always fun to see her and brunch was delicious. After brunch we walked across the street to a gallery where she had 6 photographs hanging. She takes a photo for every day of the year for project365 and she and several other people involved in it were all showing photos.

Next up for the busy day was a trip from Santa Monica down to Long Beach to buy a table Angela and I had fallen for on Craigslist. While loading the table in to the truck, I was standing on tip toes lifting the front end while others pushed when i either felt, or heard a "Pop". The pop was followed by a tingle and a sensation of pain in my right calf muscle. I quickly finished the table transaction and got in the truck. Once inside I explained to Angela that I thought I had a problem. I drove around the block and then parked because I was dying to know if I could walk. The answer was a pretty strong not really. We came back home and discussed what to do with the table. Considering the effort it took to get it in the truck we were pretty certain no one would manage to steal it over night.

Limping up the stairs was dicey but manageable thanks to the railing. I was hoping and hoping that I might get lucky and have a miraculous recovery, allowing me to continue on to the party and club night I had been looking forward to. Jesus, jealous bastard that he is had other plans and I had to resign myself to an evening of television and wondering about how badly I had hurt myself.

As I lay there, thinking about not being able to run for months, I realized I needed a sanity consult. Luckily I have a handy Physical Therapist on speed dial. I left a message, vaguely concealing my panic for dear friend Jason. He promptly called me back and ran through a checklist of my pain and disability. He quickly eased my worried mind and offered a very helpful subscription for icing and pain management, worked like a charm!

Angela wanted to stay home and nurse my wounds but I knew that would be a bad idea. There wasn't much she could do for me and I had a pretty good idea I would be nothing but Mr. Cranky-NoMcfun. I forced her to keep our plans for the evening, leaving me to watch 13 episodes of "Sons of Anarchy". Nothing like commercial free soap opera television when you can't do anything but stay in one reclined position.

Sunday we slept in as late as we could manage. I was cautiously encouraged upon the first small bit of weigh applied to my leg. Even after a stiff nights sleep it was better than the night before. As the day continued I walked on it more, even going to the store where I found that pushing a cart allowed me to walk nearly like a normal. Devin and Dylan came by in the afternoon and helped load the table into the garage for some restoration and planning of the actual move into the house. They stayed and played with the pets for a while, it was good to finally see some friends since I had missed out on my social activity of the evening before.

We watched a few movies in the evening and then went for a little drive.

I slept well though I felt like I could have used another 4 hours. Today feels incrementally better than yesterday. I think by the end of the week I will able to run again, though most likely very slowly and not very far.

It's important to remember and take advantage of the good things that the almighty god allows humans to get away with, because in the end he takes them all, sometimes one by one.

A Place Now Only In Mind

Thinking back to the farm this morning, and being a child. I was trying to remember at all what it used to be like in my brain. When make believe and reality were basically the same thing. I used to fight cowboys, because I was always an indian.
After my run last night I did a set of crunches then just laid on the floor thinking back. I have read about how as children we see more colors, but as we learn the names of colors all different shades tend to assimilate themselves into our generic names of them, so all shades of red basically become red. Eventually we don't really see all the colors anymore. I'm sure that is oversimplified, but I was sweaty and tired and laying on my back looking up at the ceiling, and I'm usually pretty easy on myself when I'm thinking because I have a bit of a short hand within my own brain.

I never did remember the sensation of my childhood brain but I did remember pretty vividly one of my special spots. There was what we referred to as a cliff on the north west end of our family farm. A creek stagnated below, or froze and occasionally even flowed. The cliff seemed to tower above the little stream and a top the cliff there grew an evergreen tree. There were not many evergreens on our little farm, and this one was most special. It was so close to the edge of the cliff that two large roots for the tree stuck out of the top of the cliff and then grew back in, making two unwieldy ladder rungs at the very top. I would sit on the bottom one many days and lean my back onto the top one, from there you were hidden by the top of the cliff from the biting breeze in winter or the mid-day sun in summer. I always love a simple sanctuary, where I can have my thoughts safely uninterrupted.

At some point I took it upon myself to make the cliff a permanently passable route from the upper bluff to the creek bed. To accomplish this I took an old blue garden hose and a dead bicycle inner-tube. I tied the inner-tube to the hose and the inner-tube to the bottom exposed root of the evergreen. I don't know when I did it or how I thought it would work but amazingly it did, and it stayed there for years. I if did not remember the day that I installed the hose it would seem in my memory to have always been there. Years later when I went back to that spot, I found that it had finally fallen when the inner-tube rotted, I found the blue hose in a pile of shale that had fallen down the cliff.

The hose rope was one of my finest inventions. It allowed one to climb up and down and it bounced if you jumped while holding on.

PS
I wasn't always an Indian, sometimes I was just a ninja.

Getting it Correct

Uh oh! I was wrong yesterday, I did make a list for 2011, is just didn't do it until February. Here it is, with results:

1. Seriously just finish More Possible Than Perfect - I did not even work on this project at all this year. I make no promises about it anymore.

2. Seriously play shows with Turbo Sunshine - okay this made the list 2 years in a row. I had some major changes in the mission. Things will be better now. Angela switched from vocals to drums, so it takes a while for someone to learn a new instrument. Cut me some slack. It will be worth it.

3. Collaborate with nearly anyone who asks and if no one asks then I should do the asking - I've done about 50 50 on this. I've collaborated here and there, and I've let a few of them die on the vine. collaboration in the age of digital island living is easy but very hard. I will continue to work on this.

4. Give up a little comfort - Moving last year accomplished this, even if it will probably lead to more comfort int he long run. Angela and I both made some major sacrifices of modern creature comforts in order to take a step forward, it's all on the verge of paying off and I'm very thrilled by it.

5. Embarrass yourself hugely at least once - I probably did this many times over, it doesn't mean I have to rehash it hear, I only asked for one.

6. Continue the new push up breaks at work - I literally was doing a set of 60 push ups when I remembered that I wrote my list in February instead of January. I hurt my neck a bit by over doing it, so I scaled back to 3 days a week and I'm in the process of rebuilding the number of reps, still aiming for 100 at a time. Hoping to get there this year.

7. Spend at least one continuous hour outside each week - I think I achieved this until the move. In fact there were many times I crushed this 10 times over. Now that I'm more settled and it will be staying light out longer I will get back into this. Last year Angela and I walked in Griffith park several times a week and I ran many others. It was a good year for spending time outside. This year it will be more Runyon Canyon.

8. Like new people when meeting them before disliking them - I did good at this, personality permitting.

9. Use new technology for productivity - Technology is a tricky bitch. I did pretty good but this morning I realized I have allowed the collection tools to take a good portion of time that I should spend using them. I'm still coming out on the upper hand but I did have to issue a stern warning to myself about this. I will keep it under advisement in the coming year.

10. Practice negative visualization often, to better appreciate all that surrounds me - I did this though not always as consciously as I had intended. Again, this item requires perspective and further work.

What Happened to a Winter?

It's bright and clear, it's the type of weather people claim to move to Southern California for. I appreciate that I didn't have to scrape ice off my windshield this morning. This weekend was just like today, except there were many sirens in the background as some young crazy tried to lite this city on fire. Meanwhile I was busy. We moved a lot of long term storage type items down to the garage. I had a broken latch spring in my truck which prevented the driver's side door from locking. With the help of the internet I was able to rig it so the broken key latch no longer stopped the remote key-less entry from working. I had never taken a car door apart before, I was shocked that I was successful, proud even.
I was able to totally revamp my bedroom studio as well. Rewiring everything the best that I could, certainly much more organized now though it's still far too many cables to ever look pretty. I totally re-arranged the closet space to the left of my desk to allow easy access to all necessary tools and instruments. It's feeling good. I finally feel like I have a work space that is comparable to the basement of the house in Kansas City where so much work got done.

Turbo rehearsal last night and on Sunday was really encouraging. My voice is sounding better and Angela is pounding the drums harder. I'm excited for Devin to join us again next week.

It will get cold again soon, and it's bound to rain. I'm ready for anything.

Apparently I Skipped on Tradition

Last year I neglected to make a list of 10 goals, but as luck would have it I can assure you that I accomplished all 10 of them exactly as I meant to. WOW, 2011 was stellar. Now bring it on 2012.

My list for 2012:

1. Complete list of goals for 2012.

2. Play gigs with Turbo Sunshine.

3. Travel out of the Country.

4. Get a Bike and Ride it.

5. Dream Big.

6. Study Music Theory.

7. Find a New Way to Express Myself.

8. Buy an Angeles Forrest Adventure Pass and Use it.

9. Make Time for Nothing.

10. Smile More.